We call on The Board of Trustees and the President of Columbia University to formally propose and help establish a Mutual Academic Defense Compact (MADC) among all members of the Association of American Universities (AAUs). The request is rooted in the basic principles of Defense of Academic Freedom, Institutional Integrity, and the Research Enterprise.

We call on the Board to deploy every legal means to challenge the federal government's termination, or threatened termination, of grants to Columbia, including cutting the indirect costs rate. Rather than engaging in anticipatory obedience with the federal government's political demands, we expect Columbia to aggressively defend our academic mission, including challenging federal actions taken against Columbia that violate values of free speech and academic freedom.

We call on the Board to initiate and join existing legal actions against the federal government’s egregious rights violations including detention and attempted deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and visa cancellations by federal agencies. We call on the University to provide legal assistance to those affected, affirm the legal presumption of innocence, and condemn attacks on international students and scholars.

The commitment to these principles has been fundamental to the success of American research universities being the best in the world. We call on the Board to affirm that reviews of academic programs, personnel decisions about individual faculty, and student disciplinary cases will never be dictated by political pressures or threats to withhold funding

Columbia is made stronger by its diversity; it remains excellent because of its inclusivity, and lives up to its values through inclusiveness. We call on the Board to affirm that these will remain central values for the institution and that such values need not be disavowed in the face of political pressure.

We call on the Board and University leadership to commit to providing backup funding for all improperly terminated federal research funds that were awarded to Columbia investigators. The research faculty, clinical and technical staff (primarily on the CUIMC campus) affected by these terminations are not to blame for their loss – indeed, in securing these research funds they both fulfilled the University’s expectations of them and met with approval in rigorous competitive processes of peer review. The Board’s strategy of negotiation and concessions up to this point has failed to protect them. We call on leadership to take financial responsibility to protect these research studies, training programs, and personnel until such time as a more effective defense has been mounted and the original funds have been recovered.